Ambience

Ambience simulates the effects of light hitting the object from all directions. The Ambience value controls the amount of light that is reflected off the surface uniformly. The large arrows represent ambient light hitting the object's surface. The smaller arrows represent the light reflected off the object's surface.

When Ambience is set to a value higher than zero, the object will reflect light from all over its surface, not only from the area hit by light. This makes the object look brighter.

The higher the Ambience value, the brighter an object appears. At 100% (right example), the object appears unnaturally bright, regardless of the light source. If you want to create a realistic effect, the sum of the Ambience and Diffusion values should add up to 100. The left example has Ambience set to 0%.

An object's Ambience is directly related to the general ambience of the environment. So, the ambient value you set for the object is directly affected by the Ambient Color you set in the Sky & Fog palette.

The Ambient Color in the Sky & Fog palette controls how much ambient light is available in the environment. The Ambience channel controls how much of the available ambient light is reflected off the object's surface.

So, if you set the Ambient Color in the Sky & Fog palette to black, or 0% ambience, then the Ambience channel value has no effect. If you set the Ambient Color to white, or 100% ambience, the Ambience channel value will control how much of the available light is reflected off the object's surface.

Return to Bryce Index

Your Ad Here